Monthly Archives: April 2012

You can hear it, can’t you? You know I’m on the verge of bursting into song. I can’t help myself. There’s nothing more exciting than a new book release. Hm, I don’t suppose the caffeine pills help much either, but hey! I’m supposed to be hyped up, right?

Today I’m kicking off the start of my blog tour over at Doris O’Connor’s blog talking about kick-ass heroines (my favorite type of heroine) and giving away a copy of Immortal Love to one lucky commenter. Don’t worry, there’ll be more chances to win in the next two weeks and there’s more at stake than a book. Bwahaha. I hope to see some of y’all there!

Time for another fantastic Friday. *happy dance* This Friday is even better than normal because Immortal Love (Olympus, Inc.) is coming out on Monday! Woot-woot! And I got my edits in for Immortal Game (Olympus, Inc.) which is a short story in the Keyboards and Kink Anthology with Evernight Publishing.

Yup, lots of writerly things going on right now and I couldn’t be happier. This is what I live for. Well, okay reading is up there too. Um, and gazing at hot men. Okay, so there are several things I live for, but being a busy writer is one of them. There.

The book release means I’m gearing up for the start of a huge blog tour. I hope to see some of y’all there because I’m giving away prizes in some places and just being goofy in others. Check out my Contests and Appearances page for details! And you know I’ll tell you where I’m going on the days they happen anyway if you don’t want to leave today’s delicious man.

What do y’all think?

He looks like he’s about to do something very naughty. I swear, it’s almost like he wants me to jump in that picture and do dirty things to him. You know? Or is that just me? It could be pre-book-release-day hallucinations or something, but I really think he’s telling me, “Take me, Danica. Take me like the naughty boy I am!” Rar.

It’s been a while since I did a Cajun French post, but I’ve been gathering information again so hopefully there will be more.

Today’s phrase is do-do (pronounced doe-doe). It means “sleep-sleep”. Remember what I said about the Cajun French/English language and intensifiers? Well, this sort of falls into the same category. I imagine anything could be an intensifier depending on how it’s used. A Cajun comedian who goes by the name of Poo-Poo Broussard is a little infamous for his phrase “My lips are chapped, chapped”. If you’re in the need for a little laughter, you should check him out.

Do-do though, is short for dormir which means sleep. Parents would tell their children, “Make do-do” or “go to sleep”.

You’ve probably also heard this word used in the phrase fais do-do which isn’t the same thing really. A fais do-do is a party, or like an informal jam session in today’s terms. People, probably extended family, would gather around, play music, dance, and eat. My own personal belief is that it was called a fais do-do because it was what adults would do while their children were sleeping.

There’s also a song called “Fais Do-do”which is a lullaby. I don’t know the words except for a few, but it’s one my mom used to sing to us when we were young. When holding babies now, it’s almost second nature to hum the “Fais Do-do” song to them.

I hope this post didn’t make y’all go do-do cause that would just be embarrassing.

Yay for the upcoming weekend! I have a book release Monday and good news on the way so I’m definitely not going to be making the do-do easily.

Hey y’all, because Immortal Love (Olympus, Inc.) releases on Monday, I’ve invited the hero of the story, Mason Landry, to share his thoughts on his heroine, Roxana Love.

Mason, thank you for taking the time out to visit with us. Tell us about yourself and Roxana.

Thanks, Danica. It’s good to visit with another coonass.

There isn’t must to tell about myself. I’m a simple man. I work in the bar I own, try to pay my bills, and avoid being robbed by crackheads. Things were going great, well as great as can be expected with a mortgage and a truck note and all that other shit stuff.

Then this woman walks into my bar. Like I said, I’m a simple man, but this woman was the complete opposite. She strutted in like she owned the place, her bright red hair crackling around her head like fire. She wore these heels that made her legs look a mile long and holy hell I thought the top of my head would explode just from looking at her. She was hot. Mais, she was hot.

She had class. You could tell just by looking at her and I wanted to dirty her up. It was that whole uptown girl meets blue-collar man that revved my motor. She looked like she was into it as well and when she showed up after the bar closed…well, you want to keep this clean, right? 😉 Let’s just say I found out just how hot she was.

So yeah, Roxana is the kind of woman who doesn’t take crap from anyone and does it while wearing killer heels. One second she’s all feminine and fragile-looking and in the next she’s swinging a sword and killing things. Nothing turns me on more than to watch her fight. Does that make me sick? *shrug* Who cares? She’s hot and I’ll figure out a way to hold onto her.

When I heard this song by Pop Evil, it summed up Roxana perfectly. Well, except for her being the boss’s daughter. It turns out she’s not the boss’s daughter, but I’m the boss’s grandson. Mais, talk about culture shock. Me? A humble bar owner the grandson of a Greek god? Yeah, I laughed too, but Roxana doesn’t seem to find my disbelief funny. I’ll get her to lighten up eventually. After I get that dress off of her.

Meanwhile, enjoy the song and look for our story (which Danica so kindly wrote) on April 30th from Evernight Publishing.

If you noticed, I didn’t blog yesterday. I think I was still recovering from the weekend, but I’m back up to speed now and ready to tell y’all what happened on the road trip to see my darling nephew.

It started out well. We left at a decent time, laughed and talked a good bit during the six hour trip. It started raining the closer we got to Ruston, but we were expecting that. We checked into our hotel and picked up the kids to bring them out to dinner. That was a bit messy since my brother-in-law is adamant about not parking next to other cars. We had a nice meal despite the rain and called it a night.

Around one o’clock in the morning, I woke up because something seemed wrong. When I opened my eyes, I noticed there was no power in the room. A quick look out the window showed the entire hotel and areas around it without electricity. I peeked through the peephole in the door and saw the emergency lights were on in the hall. No biggie. I went back to sleep, but woke up every hour on the hour, expecting the lights to be back on.

At about six thirty, I finally stopped fighting to try to sleep and got up. Still no electricity and the emergency lights were out. Luckily my brother-in-law was an Eagle Scout and came prepared. He checked on us and left us a flashlight to sort of get ready by. I used my cell phone to shower and try to put make-up on. I’d just finished dressing when the lights came back on. Go figure.

So we made it through the little black out without major problems. Everything seemed fine. But then we went to check out some property my brother-in-law wants to buy up there. We had a carload of people: brother-in-law, sister, me, my nephew, his girlfriend, and my mom. The drive out to the property was nice, giving us a chance to check out the town and the surrounding area.

Then we came to the road to the property. It started off fine. Gravel and all that, but it quickly became dirt. Dirt which had just seen several hours of rain the night before. Yup, you guessed it. We almost got stuck. Everyone in the car sort of froze as we waited for my brother-in-law to reverse all the way down the road again. I swear none of us breathed because we just knew we were going to get stuck in the mud and have to push.

Luckily we got out, but it sort of put a pall over the car. It took us about an hour to find our humor in the situation and we praised my brother-in-law for his mad driving skillz. Which then brought out the comment someone made that when we go anywhere, we’re sure to have an adventure.

Now do you see why I needed a day to relax?

When you go on trips, do you expect things to go wrong? Or is that just my family?

By the way, with the upcoming release of Immortal Love on the 30th, I’ve invited the hero, Mason Landry, to stop by tomorrow for What’s Playing Wednesday. He assures me he has the perfect song to describe Roxana Love, his heroine. We’ll have to see.

It’s the end of the week. Yay! I’m almost giddy with excitement because this has felt like the longest week ever.

I spent a good majority of the week coordinating guest blog dates, updating my website, and writing guest blogs. The work on my second Olympus, Inc. book hasn’t gone as well as I’d hoped, but I’m hoping to get some words down this weekend.

Did I mention I’m going to visit my nephew this weekend? I am. I get to see my baby again! It’ll be a long drive, but that’s okay. Most of the time he’s worth the headaches of a six hour trip. Other times, not so much. The spoiled little brat.

But you’re not here to talk about my nephew or my writing. I know. You’re here for the sexy mens. I know this. Which is why I have a good one for you today.

Is it just me, or does it look like he’s carrying a concealed weapon in his uniform? I think a strip search is needed. I feel it’s my duty as an erotic romance author to take care of this personally. I’m sure there’s a clause somewhere in the RWA’s bylaws that states if erotic romance authors see a man this hot carrying something that could be dangerous to a woman’s libido stuffed in his pants, he needs to be searched to discover just how dangerous he is. What do y’all think?

I got the idea for this post from a discussion on Four Foxes One Hound, the group blog I’m part of and thought it would be a fun way to show the differences between Cajun music and Zydeco.

According to a site I found, Cajun music comes from the Acadians who were forced to leave Canada. It borrows some from Creoles of African descent, country and western, and in some cases, rhythm and blues. It’s a mishmash of genres. From what I gather (since I don’t speak Cajun French), most of the songs center around ill-fated love, death, and loneliness.

This Cajun French song is called”Jolie Blon”, or pretty blonde.

Zydeco is not Cajun music in origin. It was created by the Creoles of African descent who borrowed elements of Cajun music. They kind of copied off each other, pretty much which is kind of funny and probably why people get the two confused.

Zydeco became more popular after WWII and was heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and jazz. It’s considered party music now, but like most songs in the R&B genre, the songs were about hardship.

The song I’ll play for the Zydeco side is by Buckwheat Zydeco called “Tee Nah Nah”.

The major difference I find between these two similar genres is the instrumentation. Zydeco uses the accordion and washboard, while Cajun music relies heavily on the accordion, fiddle, bass, and drums.

What do you think? Can you tell the difference? Which one do you prefer? I’m partial to Cajun music, myself. It’s the perfect music to listen to when I’m going fishing or sitting on my porch.